Author Pamela Travers

Born Maryborough, 9th August 1899

On this day, Margaret Agnes, the wife of Travers Robert Goff, who was the manager of the Australian Joint stock Brank building, gave birth to a baby girl, who they named Helen Lyndon.  After spending the first few years of her life in Maryborough, her family moved to Brisbane then Ipswich, Allora, Bowral and then Sydney.

In Sydney, Helen began a career as a dancer and an actress appearing mainly in Shakespearean plays in Australia and New Zealand.  As a young woman in her 20s she moved to England seeking literary fame and fortune, and used the name P.L Travers for her writing.  (It is possible that two first initials were used to disguise the fact she was a woman - a practice also adopted by other female writers at the time).

So it was under the name P.L. Travers that in 1934 she wrote the first ‘Mary Poppins’ novel about the magical and exceedingly efficient nanny. It was an immediate success and the Mary Poppins series - there were six books in total - went on to be translated into more than 20 languages.

However it is really the Disney Movie by the same name which made Mary Poppins - and Travers - famous. She initially didn’t want the movie made but Walt Disney has his heart set on turning her book into film.  He first approached Travers for the movie rights in the late 1940’s - she finally relented in 1961 and signed the contract after an offer she couldn’t refuse.

The movie starring Julie Andrews  won five Oscars and became one of the most successful movies of all times.

By many reports, Travers was so unimpressed with what Disney had done with her creation - with some material claiming that she sat in the audience and cried at the premiere.

The author died in 1996 aged 96. If she could fly by umbrella (as her magic nanny of her stories does) and revisit her birthplace of Maryborough, she would be most likely be very surprised at the attention she’s gained since her death.